A tale of nature, wildlife and birding from Cheshire, North Wales and across the globe....

A tale of nature, wildlife and birding from Cheshire, North Wales and across the globe....

Monday 1 February 2016

January Birding!

There have been a whole host of great birds during January in Cheshire, with some returning favourites such as the Burton Mere Long-eared Owl putting on a great show in the Hawthorn tree leading up to Inner Marsh Farm  hide, to finally getting a Green-winged Teal at my local Neumann’s Flash.
Long-eared Owl, Burton Mere RSPB, Cheshire
Long-eared Owl - Burton Mere RSPB
Green-winged Teal - Neumann's Flash, Cheshire
Record shot of the Neumann's Green-winged Teal
The start of the month also brought my first Cheshire Pallas’s Warbler in the form of the well twitched individual at Heswall on the Wirral. Present for nearly two weeks in the scrub around the sewage works on Target Road and associating with a group of Goldcrests, Long-tailed Tits and Chiffchaffs, we got great views of what is one of my favourite warbler species bumbling through the branches next to the sewage tanks. Giving fantastic scope views through the wire fencing, the yellow rump stood out a mile (a feature I didn’t manage to see on the Norfolk bird) as did the bold eye stripe, while the colouration was noticeably different from the accompanying Goldcrests, being much more of a green-olive colour on the back.


The Great Northern Diver at West Kirby Marine Lake also continued to show well throughout the month, and we managed to catch up with this impressive diver on the far side of the lake after seeing the Pallas’s Warbler just as the sun had started to go down. 
Great Northern Diver - West Kirby Marine Lake, Wirral
Great Northern Diver - West Kirby Marine Lake
Great Northern Diver - West Kirby Marine Lake, Wirral
It’s always lovely to see these beautiful divers up close, and this particularly confiding individual came to within just a few metres of the side whilst diving for fish and crustaceans.
West Kirby Marine Lake, Wirral

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